Killingworth

Construction of Killingworth, a new town, began in 1963. Intended for 20,000 people, it was a former mining community, formed on seven hundred and sixty acres of derelict colliery land near Killingworth Village. The building of Killingworth Township was undertaken by Northumberland County Council and was not formally a New Town sponsored by the Government. 

Unlike that town, Killingworth’s planners adopted a radical approach to town centre design, resulting in relatively high-rise buildings in an avant-garde and brutalist style that won awards for architecture, dynamic industry and attractive environment.

This new town centre consisted of pre-cast concrete houses, with millions of small crustacean shells unusually embedded into their external walls, five to ten storey flats, offices, industrial units and service buildings, which often consisted of artistic non-functional characteristics, shops and residential multi-storey car parks, interconnected by ramps and walkways. These made up a deck system of access to shopping and other facilities, employing the Swedish Skarne method of construction.

Killingworth Towers were demolished in 1987

Originally named Killingworth Township, the latter part was quickly dropped through lack of colloquial use.

Killingworth is referred to as Killy by many residents of the town and surrounding areas.

Around 1964, during the reclamation of the derelict pit sites, a fifteen acre lake south of the town centre was created; spoil heaps were levelled, seeded and planted with semi-mature trees.

Wikipedia

There were also groups of Calder Houses built, subsequently rendered neutral with render, their period characteristics erased.

Rightmove

All archive images RIBA pix

Once home to Thelma and Bob Ferris – whatever happened to the likely lads’ and lasses’ homes?

I had come in search of paradise on a 52 bus – too late was the cry, too late.

The winds of change had blown away the new coal dream, so I wandered lonely around the quiet streets.

The daffodils were past their best.

Telephone Exchange – Killingworth

Killingworth Newcastle upon Tyne NE12 6UG

The building of Killingworth Township began in 1963, was undertaken by Northumberland County Council and was not sponsored by the Government.

RIBA pix

In 1987 the demolition of this three-tier housing estate of the township was undertaken by the Architects’ Department of the Metropolitan Borough of North Tyneside.

Photo: Philip Wolmuth

Once the wrecking ball arrives new town can begin to look like any old town.

Following Euan Lynn’s suggestion – I went to take a look around.

From the window of the 52 bus, I saw an enchanting Telephone Exchange.

A not too distant cousin of the Hadrian Exchange in Newcastle and their pal over the Tyne in Gateshead.

It is a real delight – an exceptional spiral staircase and futuristic chamfered windows angled at each of the four corners.

Let’s take a loving look around.

Milton Square Gateshead

As a companion to the adjacent Poet’s Estate – let’s take a look at Malory, Milton, Masefield and Wordsworth.

This is a similar mix of boxy terraces and traffic free walkways.

Possibly of a later date.

Underpasses – Newcastle upon Tyne

I’m often to be found underground – in Scarborough, Rotherham, Stockport, and Milton Keynes.

Here I am in this instance on Tyneside exploring the labyrinthine netherworlds.

Bathing Pool – Tynemouth

I had cycled by on a journey from Newcastle to Amble.

I returned to take a closer look.

At the Southern end of Tynemouth Longsands beach, on the North East coast, lies the decaying remains of Tynemouth Outdoor Swimming Pool. A concrete, rectangular, salt water tidal pool, built in the 1920s. Popular with locals and holiday makers alike for over 50 years. It began to lose favour in the late 70s with the introduction of cheap package holidays abroad, just as other British coastal holiday destinations lost out.

The pool fell into disrepair, and in the mid 90s the Local Authority demolished the ancillary buildings and bulldozed the rubble into the pool, at a cost of £200,000, before filling with concrete and imported boulders to form an artificial ‘rock pool’.

The anticipated marine life they introduced never flourished and the pool remains an eyesore to this day.

Friends of Tynemouth Pool

There are plans for restoration and renewal.

So that once again the merry bathers may bathe merrily.

Chronicle Live

There’s still a long way to go.

Concrete Toon

Everything is up in the air.

Tyneside is self evidently enamoured of elevation – they simply adore bridges, having five and another one as well.  Walking driving, running trains across the mighty Tyne Valley, why they even write songs about them.

In the Swinging Sixties T Dan Smith vowed to create a Brasilia of the North, which as good as his word he did, though sadly lacking the requisite regard for the law of the land.

What remains is a complex interwoven structure of urban motorways, walkways, multi-storey car parks and tower blocks. To explore is to enter a world of the sublime, exhilarating and still yet mildly confusing.

Can you get there from here?

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